The Tau-Cross in the Undercroft in the of Canterbury Cathedral

( 193 ) THE TAU-GR0S8 CAPITALS IN THE UNDERCROFT OF CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL. BY J. M. 0. AND M. M. OBUM. IN his lecture to the Friends of Canterbury Cathedral in the Chapter House on June 18th, 1932, attention was drawn by Sir Charles Peers to the two large Taw-cross capitals crowning two piUars which have been added to Ernulf's undercroft for the support of two of WiUiam of Sens's piUars in the choir above. I should be grateful if I may make some remarks on these capitals (and on a third which has been used on another support further west in the undercroft). If the reader wUl refer to Professor WiUis's plan at the end of his Architectural History of Canterbury Cathedral he will easily make out the positions of these piUars. They are additions which WiUiam of Sens has had to make to the undercroft of Ernulf, owing to the altered spacing of the arcade of the new choir of 1175-1178. The two easterly piUars have been placed where they stand now to support the two piUars marked No. X on Professor WiUis's plan. WiUiam had got as far as this when he feU and was crippled. Possibly the change in piUar No. X, where the lower octagonal drums cease and cylindrical drums begin, is the place where the French WUham ended his work in 1178 and where the Enghsh WUliam continued the buUding of these pUlars in 1180 or 1181. The third capital which interests me supports Professor WilUs's pillar numbered No. VI on the south side. The corresponding support on the north side is entirely 1177 and 1178 work and has not the same interest. PUlars No. VI in the choir are the western supports of the great crossing vault at the " turning," on which WiUiam of Sens was working when the catastrophe described by Gervase overtook him. 10 194 THE TAV-CROSS CAPITALS TN THE UNDERCROFT I turn first to those two eastern piUars and capitals in the undercroft. They recaU immediately the tow-cross capitals in the Chapel of St. John in the Tower of London, of about 1080, Gundulf's work, and suggest any degree of Norman antiquity, even the days of Lanfranc and WiUiam the Conqueror. Indeed the question they raise is whether WiUiam of Sens has found ready for his use here Lanfranc's masonry, which was already 100 years old (1077-1178), or whether in these capitals and pUlars we have examples of the work of Ernulf who, when Anselm was Archbishop, lengthened the choir of Lanfranc about 150 feet eastward, twenty or thirty years after 1077. The two piUars (which the reader wiU perhaps aUow me to caU " Jachin " and " Boaz " for convenience's sake) are 126 inches in girth. Their capitals measure at the top sixty-one inches square. The capitals are patched up in places but were made originaUy of two large stones, each measuring 60 by 30 inches in length and breadth. Their depth is about 15 inches. The pUlar on the north side (Fig. I) is buUt in six courses. The capital is of two stones. The next course three : then four : then three : then three : and the base is of two stones hke the capital. The whole height of the columns of Ernulf cannot have been needed in this substructure of William's, for Ernulf's pUlars (including base and capital) must have been nearly 17 feet, and " Jachin " and " Boaz " thrust themselves into Ernulf's groin-vaulting of the undercroft at about 14 feet from the ground. As to the capitals themselves, they have (roughly) the same design, both of them, on aU four faces : in the middle of the face the tow-cross : at each corner a volute. The volute is the curl over of a large plain leaf of foUage. This leaf does not quite fill aU the space between the corner and the tow-cross and the interval has been marked with four or five hnes more or less paraUel to the outer edge of the leaf, as though the sculptor had wished to suggest leaf behind leaf, or petal behind petal, of a tulip flower or, say, of the coats of an onion. The tow-cross measures 16J inches across. To OF CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL. 195 be exact, the cross-stroke of the T is 16£ by 8£ inches, and the down-stroke 11 by 7£ down to the place at which it begins to recede towards the lower edge of the capital. This down stroke of the T, by itself, is exactly the bracket or " console member " of the early capitals in Normandy and in England. I suppose it is out of this " console " that it arose. Possibly the tow-cross was valued as a symbol. Certainly in the east window of the Corona, overhead, the same - \ Vi V N ^^y. l \ 1 S* 1 ^.S T UJ ( \ ^ i " * FIG. I. N.E. PDOLAE. (" JACHIN ") FEOM SOTJTH-EAST showing yaw-crosses (X) and Curved Abacus (Y). tow may be seen being marked by the Israehtes with blood of the Passover lamb on the hntel of their door. That is an early thirteenth century picture. It was used as one of four types which were arranged round the Crucifixion-panel. In the St. John's Chapel in the Tower of London there are twelve piUars and two haU-pUlars (or responds). AU but three of these have capitals with tow-crosses. Two have cushion capitals. I suppose this is Enghsh. Only one of the complete capitals has volutes as weU as tow-crosses. 196 THE TAU-CROSS CAPITALS IN THE UNDERCROFT This one capital is unhke aU its feUows and has a typical Norman design : volutes at the four corners, and a friU or coUar of plain leaves like hart's tongue ferns—it is the faraway reminiscence of Classical Corinthian. But its towcross differs from the work I have seen in Normandy. Gundulf has crossed his " T." The tow in GunduU's Tower Chapel and here in the Canterbury undercroft seems to have been a departure from the design so common (e.g.) at Caen. There the middle of the face of the capital has what the French caU a " console " or bracket. But here the " bracket" has extended (as it were) arms, and become a " tow." The " console " but not the " tow " is found on the oldest capitals of the Abbey of the Conqueror at Caen, St. Stephen's, and on aU the capitals of the nave in the Trinity Church, Queen MatUda's abbey, which has been supposed to be Gundulf's work. The starting point for any consideration of " Jachin " and " Boaz " wUl be the fact that Gundulf used the tow in the Tower of London. That would be about 1080. My suggestion is that Ernulf (not Lanfranc) used it in our Cathedral. His date as Prior is 1096-1107. We have two capitals here—and, I think, a third—to compare with GunduU's work. In the White Tower at London, on one capital —and on one only, I think, but I cannot be sure about the haU capitals on the responds—GunduU combines the " tow " with the volutes. In his other (wMVoluted) tow-cross capitals, he handles the change by which he arrives from the round of the column to the square of the abacus, by cutting away the four corners at the bottom of his capital, and carving the triangular faces at each corner which result into a kind of foliage that is not whoUy unlike the foUage (if you may caU it that) on "Jachin" and " Boaz ", but rougher. This " foUage " (but it scarcely deserves the name) is found on eight of GunduU's fourteen capitals and haU-capitals ; the volutes on three others ; the tow-cross on eleven. From what is left of them it would appear that the " Ernulf " capitals were urnform ; as though the workman had passed the experimental stage and had decided upon a urnform design. OF CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL. 197 Again, the pUlars of GunduU are buUt in courses of ashlar work, in ten courses or so, each of eight or nine stones. The pUlar ("Jachin"), which I counted, was buUt in courses of two, three and in one case four stones. So far as this weighs at aU, it suggests a later date for our undercroft pUlars and capitals. But the evidence in the undercroft for a later date than Lanfranc's hes in the abacuses. These are straight-sided on three sides, but bowed or curved on the fourth. " Jachin's " abacus (" Jachin " stands towards the north) has its curve on the east side and can be plainly seen to be bent like a bow, its curve corresponding with the curve of the passage. On I 3 ¥ \ •" FIG. II. S.E. PILLAR (" BOAZ "). the south " Boaz " has the curved side of the abacus on the inner face towards the waU of the passage. The abacus has been placed with its curve towards the west and it is haH hidden in the groin vault of the undercroft. These curves are suggestive of the pUlars having once stood in an ambulatory, the bending or curved side facing outwards and corresponding with the bend of the ambulatory. Gundulf has not made this curve in the abacus of the capitals of bis ambulatory in St. John's Chapel. Perhaps it was a later refinement so to bend the outline of the abacus on the outer side towards the passage. In any case if these abacuses ever stood in an ambulatory they must be ErnuK's and not Lanfranc's. For the foundations of the eastern apses of Lanfranc's choiraisles have been uncovered and it could be seen that 1 9 8 THE T^EZ-CROSS CAPITALS IN THE UNDERCROFT Lanfranc's choir aisle stopped short and did not run round his choir. Lanfranc had no ambulatory. A third " ErnuU " capital (as I said) can be seen, stiU, where WUliam of Sens has made use of it as part of his support for his pUlar No. VI. The two stones can be seen there, used, together with another stone, to make a capital for a block of masonry which ends in a half-octagon. This gives the capital a nondescript shape (Figs. I l l and IV). And it is now a puzzling combination of late eleventh century and 1170 u \ \ ^ \ \ I > \ J J \ x i ^. v- s^ \ I t ) »* i r FIG. III. WESTERN COLUMN (FROM SOUTH-WEST) showing Vestiges of Taw-crosses (X) subsequently carved into foliage forms. carving. There are traces of ErnuU's " tuhp " foUage and of his old Normandy volutes. But the two stones of ErnuU's capital have been cut into new shapes and in 1170-something the men have carved a f ohage which trembles on the verge of being Early Enghsh : it has leaves and buds which are whoUy different from the ErnuU work. Three sides of the old capital remain and the position in each of them of the towcross can be recognized. There are traces of a projecting ledge, measuring in each case the required 16| inches, which OF CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL. 199 has been more or less cut away, but has not quite disappeared. Besides these three capitals in the undercroft, in the choir above two respond-capitals, at the west end of the choir, may be of ErnuU's stone. The responds on which they rest are buUt of courses which are generaUy of two stones. And the " ErnuU " form can be detected, perhaps, under the disguise of 1175 work in the capitals. Traces of the tow-cross suggest themselves perhaps. AU the pUlars of the choir, now, are built of whole drums and the capitals are of single stones. WiUiam of Sens used entirely new stone it seems. He retained the old girth of 126 inches and heightened the piUars Jim Nortlo Fate.